Setting Sun - What Has Happened To Japan's Gaming Industry?
R420
The Japanese games industry would appear to be screwed at this point.
That is the basic message delivered by the latest CESA White Paper,
the annual report of the Computer Entertainment Suppliers'
Association. CESA's survey chronicled a third consecutive year of
steady decline in Japanese hardware and software revenues, down 11% in
2003 and nearly 40% since the peak of the PlayStation generation in
1997.
The year of Final Fantasy VII and Pokemon was the beginning of a
continuing boom in North America. Since then, the American games
market has grown steadily into a monster that comfortably supports
three platforms and looks to have another banner year in 2004. In
Japan, it was the beginning of a long, grim slide, briefly interrupted
by Dragon Quest.
Aside from the obvious question of what developers and hardware
manufactures can do to kick-start the market again, the figures
inspire a kind of chicken-and-egg problem. Has the industry changed,
and stopped selling what consumers want to buy? Or has the market
changed, and stopped buying what the industry sells?
What Sells, Who's Buying?
In Japan, 1997's big hits were Final Fantasy and Pokemon. 2003's big
hits, six years later, were Final Fantasy, Pokemon, and Dynasty
Warriors 4. Times, they change.
Why is Dynasty Warriors the biggest original hit of the age? A subject
for a feature of its own...
Koei's tactical action series is more or less the only original
domestic platinum hit the Japanese development community has created
this generation, coming out of nowhere to move millions of units
across three installments and three more expansions. Going against the
current trend, it's actually enjoyed increasing sales from sequel to
sequel -- Sengoku Musou was one of only four million-selling Japanese
PS2 releases in 2003.
Besides that...Capcom's Onimusha looked to be the genesis of a
profitable new franchise, but in fact its first installment was the
only one to go platinum in Japan, in the software-starved early days
of the PS2. Its two sequels both sold progressively less, and its
creators have now turned to a project designed exclusively for a
Western audience, Shadow of Rome. "We're going to think of the other
territories, and after we start to understand what they like, then
maybe we'll be able to see the whole picture," says producer Keiji
Inafune, but it remains to be seen whether this study-abroad project
of his will bring Capcom significant benefit in any part of the world.
Where have all the Parappas gone? And the Lammys and the Ulalas, for
that matter?
Devil May Cry also came out strong and faltered with its sequel.
Konami's Zone of the Enders debuted on shaky legs, and its second
installment, despite an improved critical reception, fell flat at the
box office. Sony Computer Entertainment, which created massive hits in
the 32-bit era, has comfortably sat back on its Gran Turismo laurels
while publishing an endless string of boutique releases. Drakengard
was Japan's best-selling original game in 2003, struggling to move
around a quarter-million units. No original titles were spotlighted in
Sony's 2004 PlayStation awards, only sequels and licenses.
Everything else to consistently sell in blockbuster-hit quantities
since the advent of the PlayStation 2 is either a sequel to something
that was a hit in the last generation or a license from some other
medium (Super Robot Wars, Winning Eleven, Antonio Inoki pachinko games
and the like). Metal Gear Solid 2; Gran Turismo 3; Soul Calibur II;
the Tales series; a profusion of Final Fantasies; Nintendo's franchise
players; and so on.
"Before we've just been looking to Japan," says Keiji Inafune. "Now
it's time to look at the other areas of the world" -- starting with
ancient Rome, evidently.
The failure of the industry to create new successes leaves a
continually expanding gap created by franchises in decline. Konami's
Silent Hill horror adventures have fallen on hard times -- Silent Hill
4 was outsold its first week by a pachinko game -- and the Tokimeki
Memorial franchise's third installment killed it. After years of
dominating the horror genre, Resident Evil is on shaky legs. Its
online debut tanked, and Resident Evil 4 is confined to the
comparatively small GameCube installed base. Characters and concepts
that found currency on the PlayStation are has-beens now -- look what
became of Parappa the Rapper, and in fact the entire rhythm action
genre. Namco's Taiko no Tatsujin has sold steadily through its
expansions, but the followup to Nintendo's Donkey Konga sold a
disappointing 32,000 units its first week.
See You On The Other Side
By comparison, the American and European branches of the industry have
created new hits, new characters, and new franchises. Grand Theft Auto
is technically a holdover from the 32-bit age, but it became a success
after completely reinventing itself for PS2. Ubisoft trumped the
Japanese stealth action competition with Splinter Cell, giving the
city of Montreal alone as many or more original platinum hits than
Japan as a whole. Electronic Arts draws plenty of flack for its
reliance on established names, but even the old monolith gave us SSX
and the rest of the EA Big lineup. Sony threw out its PlayStation
franchises and started over with Jak and Ratchet & Clank.
Outsold by the Quebecois. Japan should hang its head in national
shame.
The American games industry has grown as a consequence. Entertainment
Software Association figures chart steady growth in North American
software shipments since the dawn of the PlayStation era in 1995 -- $7
billion worth in 2003. The only year-on-year decline since then took
place in 2000, when the PS2 was on its way in and the Dreamcast was on
its way out.
Games People Play
There's a strange irony in the comparison between two sets of figures
in the 2003 CESA White Paper. As mentioned above, hardware and
software sales are in decline, and have been for some time. Yet at the
top of the survey summary, it says that 37.6% of the Japanese
population "is in continuous contact with games," compared to only
25.6% in 2002. That's 34.4 million people who are apparently pretty
interested in electronic gaming.
The gaming audience is expanding, then, but it's not necessarily
expanding in traditional areas. Of those 34.4 million, according to
CESA's research, 3.4 million are focused on online games, and almost 9
million are fans of cellular-phone games.
Mobile gaming is only just catching on in the west, but like any trend
related to cellular phones, it started in Japan, where it's rapidly
growing in revenue and popularity. Some independent developers have
turned to mobile gaming as a primary source of income -- shooter
developer Cave is a good example -- and it's penetrated areas of the
market that traditional games can't touch. In an amusingly publicized
incident earlier this year, a Diet member was censured by his
colleagues after he was caught playing cell-phone Tetris during
legislative debate.
Cave's bread and butter these days -- not arcades, not consoles, but
cellular phones.
The proliferation of mobile gaming offers an uncomfortable reminder of
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata's broken-record refrain. More complex
games, he says, "require customers to consume enormous time and
energy" playing them. Iwata may be questionably optimistic about the
prospects of the Nintendo DS, and he's shoving his head in the sand
with regard to the proliferation of online gaming. Here he may have a
point, though, especially in an aging market with fewer and fewer
chunks of free time.
Complex, lengthy, story-driven games demand an awful lot of care and
feeding these days, and often offer paradoxically little replay value.
DMA Design hit on a formula with Grand Theft Auto III that balanced
the old and the new effectively -- it offers activities suited to both
long stretches of gameplay and short sittings of cruising or random
action. So far, though, the trends thus inspired haven't caught on in
Japanese development, and in the meantime, pachinko outsells Silent
Hill.
Better Luck Next Year
The coming year could see a turnaround for the console business,
thanks to a few key games. Between the beginning of this fall and the
end of next spring, providing their current release dates hold, Final
Fantasy XII, Gran Turismo 4, and Dragon Quest VIII will all hit the
market, providing new installments in the three most popular and
lucrative franchises in Japan. That doesn't solve the problem of
creating new hits, but it should sell a few more consoles even in a
saturated market.
Dragon Quest spinoffs have been selling less and less lately, but the
real thing no doubt still has platinum power.
That same timeframe will also see two new handheld launches, though,
the outcome of which is a little harder to predict. The PSP promises
more of what we already have (in portable form) -- except Japanese
consumers aren't buying most of what's on offer these days. The DS,
meanwhile, promises something new, different, and original -- except
Japanese developers seem to have a rough time coming up with original
concepts right now.
What if they gave a system launch and nobody came? The PSP's as-yet
franchise-dominated lineup of titles is particularly worrisome,
because a new platform's early days are the best time to create new
hits. EA succeeded with SSX largely because of its lack of competition
-- were it to debut now, it wouldn't do nearly as well. Exactly how
portable the final hardware proves to be is another critical issue,
since the rise of mobile gaming suggests that the Japanese market
currently favors portability over power.
"Game developers are finding it difficult to make completely unique
software," says Satoru Iwata. A completely unique bit of hardware
should be a start, at least.
The DS is more of a question mark, given the vague nature of its
software lineup at this point, but the current pattern of hardware
sales in Japan bodes ill for its success, given that even the Game Boy
Advance missed sales targets by about 10% in 2003. Nintendo claims the
DS will carve out a market niche for itself, regardless of other
handhelds on the market, but we'll see if that prediction actually
pans out.
Where Will It End?
For all this pessimism, it doesn't seem like the Japanese game
industry is going away entirely. CESA still charted more than $10.5
billion in hardware and software revenue in 2003. The decline has been
slow compared to, say, the American gaming crash of the early '80s (a
35% decline one year, a 60% drop the next), and a dedicated enthusiast
audience remains to follow games in whatever form developers choose to
present them.
The advent of new hardware in the next two to three years suggests
things will get worse before they get better, though, if indeed they
ever do. Conventional wisdom believes that new handheld launches will
soften the blow of a transitional period, but that may not be the case
in Japan, where the development community seems to have a hard time
delivering enough compelling software for even one dominant platform.
Satoru Iwata claims that Nintendo's new handheld will inspire new,
revitalizing game concepts, while Sony touts the crossover potential
of the PSP. Hopefully, for the sake of the games industry at large,
they're both right. It would be unfortunate to look back at 2004 as
the beginning of yet another long, grim slide, briefly interrupted as
usual by Dragon Quest.
"Say g'night to da bad guy!"
Maybe it's because Hiroshi Yamauchi's gone. He always did seem to
think the industry would fall to pieces without him.
The western perception of the Japanese business world still seems to
paint it as the usual inscrutable Asian hive mind. Which is too bad,
because in the absence of that overwhelming stereotype, Yamauchi would
be recognized among the unique industrialists of the latter half of
the 20th century. He spent more than 40 years in the fast lane as the
gaming world's answer to Tony Montana -- he had his balls and his
word, and he didn't break them for no one.
Legend has it, in fact, that one of the only known instances of
Yamauchi giving way to anyone screwed Nintendo for the next 10 years.
So the story goes, Yamauchi favored an optical disc format for the
Nintendo 64...except that Shigeru Miyamoto couldn't bear to deal with
load times in his games. Which would mean that Yamauchi, for almost 20
years as the head of a console gaming power, was more or less always
right.
Well, except for the Virtual Boy. Somebody has some explaining to do
there.
Class 1
> http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3133485
>
> The Japanese games industry would appear to be screwed at this point.
> Somebody has some explaining to do
> there.
Well... perhaps it's time for Grand Theft Auto Vice Tokyo, featuring
Godzilla in a Hawaiian shirt, going on rpg-style shopping-mall
Japanese-sword-fighting bikini-girl-band rampages or something... with
extra online-multiplayer karaoke function of course...
=)
Grand Inquisitor
> Legend has it, in fact, that one of the only known instances of
> Yamauchi giving way to anyone screwed Nintendo for the next 10 years.
> So the story goes, Yamauchi favored an optical disc format for the
> Nintendo 64...except that Shigeru Miyamoto couldn't bear to deal with
> load times in his games. Which would mean that Yamauchi, for almost 20
> years as the head of a console gaming power, was more or less always
> right.
>
I always understood Miyamoto's concern with lengthy load times, but as
most other developers preferred the benefits of CD over the load times,
I think Miyamoto was wrong in this case.
Making the best decision for the sake of the games is the wrong thing to
do if it drives away developers.
> Well, except for the Virtual Boy. Somebody has some explaining to do
> there.
Gunpei Yokoi. He created it and he's the one Yamauchi blamed for its
failure.
--
"The world cares very little about what a man or woman knows; it is what
a man or woman is able to do that counts."
--Booker T. Washington
Kevin Sullivan
<zo...@columbus.rr.com> wrote:
>R420 wrote:
>> Legend has it, in fact, that one of the only known instances of
>> Yamauchi giving way to anyone screwed Nintendo for the next 10 years.
>> So the story goes, Yamauchi favored an optical disc format for the
>> Nintendo 64...except that Shigeru Miyamoto couldn't bear to deal with
>> load times in his games. Which would mean that Yamauchi, for almost 20
>> years as the head of a console gaming power, was more or less always
>> right.
>>
>
>I always understood Miyamoto's concern with lengthy load times, but as
>most other developers preferred the benefits of CD over the load times,
>I think Miyamoto was wrong in this case.
Hear hear. It's kind of weird to think that the entire gaming industry
would be different right now if they had gone CD instead of cart for
the N64. The PSX would likely have never taken off, and Sega might
still be doing hardware....Nintendo of course would still be on top,
having never driven away all the top developers.
Grand Inquisitor
>>I always understood Miyamoto's concern with lengthy load times, but as
>>most other developers preferred the benefits of CD over the load times,
>>I think Miyamoto was wrong in this case.
>
>
>
> Hear hear. It's kind of weird to think that the entire gaming industry
> would be different right now if they had gone CD instead of cart for
> the N64. The PSX would likely have never taken off, and Sega might
> still be doing hardware....Nintendo of course would still be on top,
> having never driven away all the top developers.
Nah, don't discount the PSX, even if N64 had ended up being more
successful. The PSX was a big hit from the start.
What hurt Nintendo more than anything was driving the cry-babies at
Squaresoft away.
Doug Jacobs
> Hear hear. It's kind of weird to think that the entire gaming industry
> would be different right now if they had gone CD instead of cart for
> the N64. The PSX would likely have never taken off, and Sega might
> still be doing hardware....Nintendo of course would still be on top,
> having never driven away all the top developers.
I thought that Sony was helping to produce a CD-based Nintendo console
when Nintendo changed its mind and decided to go with a cartridge based
unit which became the N64. Sony, left with half a console, pried
Nintendo's name off the front, named the resulting thing "Playstation" and
the rest is history...
Had Nintendo not gone back to cartridges, the Playstation probably
wouldn't have happend at all, and as you point out, Nintendo would still
be on top. Though I don't think we would have seen some of the games for
this console vs. the Playstation one. One of the reasons I think Sony
rose to such popularity so quickly was because they didn't have Nintendo's
draconian morality rules around. Want to make a game about bleeding
zombies? Sure! How about one where you lure innoence villagers into your
mansion so you can kill them and steal their soul? Why not!
Eiji Hayashi
> What hurt Nintendo more than anything was driving the cry-babies at
> Squaresoft away.
you'll have to explain to me how choosing to only develop for the
dominant platform, a guiding principle of Squaresoft right from its
beginning and has been stated many many times, constitutes as
"cry-babies". Blame Nintendo for loosing its dominant position, not
Squaresoft for sticking to its business strategy.
Scott H
"Grand Inquisitor" <zo...@columbus.rr.com> wrote in message
news:Kh_Kc.223907$DG4....@fe2.columbus.rr.com...
> >>I always understood Miyamoto's concern with lengthy load times, but as
> >>most other developers preferred the benefits of CD over the load times,
> >>I think Miyamoto was wrong in this case.
> >
> >
> >
> > Hear hear. It's kind of weird to think that the entire gaming industry
> > would be different right now if they had gone CD instead of cart for
> > the N64. The PSX would likely have never taken off, and Sega might
> > still be doing hardware....Nintendo of course would still be on top,
> > having never driven away all the top developers.
>
> Nah, don't discount the PSX, even if N64 had ended up being more
> successful. The PSX was a big hit from the start.
The PS1 took 1.5 years in the states to sell 1 million units, and the
Saturn was right on its heels. In Japan the Saturn was outselling the PS1
until FF7 came out. If the N64 had been CD based, FF7 would have been on
the N64, and everything very likely would have been different. I remember
Square talking about the N64 not being capable of FF7 because it wasn't on
CD, which I always found funny because the music was all Midi, and the
backgrounds were 2D. I guess the FMV cutscenes were the big deal to Square.
But the PS1 was not winning from the start, people were actually still
buying Genesis and Snes more than anything else up until all three consoles
were out and running.
Like I said, the PS1 took 1.5 years to sell 1 million units in the
States, and the Saturn sold 3 million by the end of its 3 year span.
Similarly, by the end of both console's life cycles, the N64 sold 17.9
million units in the States and the PS1 sold 22.7 million. If Nintendo had
used CD, and/or Sega had used mature development kits and better 3rd party
support, things very easily could have been different.
http://users4.ev1.net/%7Esheath/Consolehistory.htm#Saturnandps1
http://users4.ev1.net/%7Esheath/N64ussales.htm
http://users4.ev1.net/%7Esheath/Ps1ussales.htm
> What hurt Nintendo more than anything was driving the cry-babies at
> Squaresoft away.
There had to be money in that deal.
Ted
Scott H wrote:
snip
> http://users4.ev1.net/%7Esheath/Ps1ussales.htm
snip
Those numbers are not complete for the stated time period listed
(1995-2003). They do not include, for instance, any sales of Gekioh
Shooting King (US version of Shienryu), which came out in 2002 (so it
should have some sales listed even if the numbers only track to January
1, 2003), or 2003 US releases like Sol Divide and Hellboy (which might
be excluded if they came out after a point in 2003 that the numbers
track to). Where do the numbers come from?
Grand Inquisitor
>>What hurt Nintendo more than anything was driving the cry-babies at
>>Squaresoft away.
>
>
> you'll have to explain to me how choosing to only develop for the
> dominant platform, a guiding principle of Squaresoft right from its
> beginning and has been stated many many times, constitutes as
> "cry-babies". Blame Nintendo for loosing its dominant position, not
> Squaresoft for sticking to its business strategy.
Squaresoft was very up-front in that they wanted to include a lot of
voicework and FMV cut scenes in their games, which cartridges wouldn't
allow.
That's how.
Grand Inquisitor
>
> The PS1 took 1.5 years in the states to sell 1 million units, and the
> Saturn was right on its heels. In Japan the Saturn was outselling the PS1
> until FF7 came out. If the N64 had been CD based, FF7 would have been on
> the N64, and everything very likely would have been different. I remember
> Square talking about the N64 not being capable of FF7 because it wasn't on
> CD, which I always found funny because the music was all Midi, and the
> backgrounds were 2D. I guess the FMV cutscenes were the big deal to Square.
They were, that was their primary objection to N64, they made no bones
about it. In fact early FF7 technology demos were done on SGI N64
emulators, I remember Diehard Gamefan's article on this, way back when.
You also can't discount that pretty much only Sega employees were able
to get PSX-quality 3D out of the machine (Saturn had more raw power but
was a 2D machine with 3D parts tacked on after the PSX specs were
announced).
> Similarly, by the end of both console's life cycles, the N64 sold 17.9
> million units in the States and the PS1 sold 22.7 million. If Nintendo had
> used CD, and/or Sega had used mature development kits and better 3rd party
> support, things very easily could have been different.
>
I believe that, world-wide, PSX outsold N64 by about 2-1 (due to N64
having less popularity in Japan).
Grand Inquisitor
> I thought that Sony was helping to produce a CD-based Nintendo console
> when Nintendo changed its mind and decided to go with a cartridge based
> unit which became the N64. Sony, left with half a console, pried
> Nintendo's name off the front, named the resulting thing "Playstation" and
> the rest is history...
>
There is no evidence (that *I've* heard of anyway) that the planned
SNES-CD attachment was to be the 3D graphics machine that the PSX later
became. But you are right, the germ of the idea came from Sony's
dealings with Nintendo, who decided to go with Philips at the last
minute, without telling Sony first, which alienated Sony. And, of
course, you can see how successful Philips wound up being in the
interactive CD software field.... All along, the attachment was
intended to be CD-based, this part of the plan never changed.
Scott H
"Ted" <nospam...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:40FD1CC0...@nospam.com...
The page has the link to the Usenet post, it's all I've ever seen posted on
sales figures. So, you're right, it could be off somewhat.
Scott H
> Scott H wrote:
> >
> > The PS1 took 1.5 years in the states to sell 1 million units, and
the
> > Saturn was right on its heels. In Japan the Saturn was outselling the
PS1
> > until FF7 came out. If the N64 had been CD based, FF7 would have been
on
> > the N64, and everything very likely would have been different. I
remember
> > Square talking about the N64 not being capable of FF7 because it wasn't
on
> > CD, which I always found funny because the music was all Midi, and the
> > backgrounds were 2D. I guess the FMV cutscenes were the big deal to
Square.
>
> They were, that was their primary objection to N64, they made no bones
> about it. In fact early FF7 technology demos were done on SGI N64
> emulators, I remember Diehard Gamefan's article on this, way back when.
The game itself could have easily been done, the cutscenes would have
had to have been real time. The music even sounds like N64 chip music.
> You also can't discount that pretty much only Sega employees were able
> to get PSX-quality 3D out of the machine
Sega didn't give out Dev kits with built in software effects until much
later than Sony did. The reason being that it was traditional to hand out
all of the hardware documentation and have the developers code in Assembly,
something 3rd parties returned to even on PS1, during its later years. The
combination of hardware special effects like Gouraud shading and
transparency with mature C based developement kits for the PS1 is what
allowed developers to crank out games more quickly, with consistantly higher
performance levels than a Saturn game coded in Assembly in the same amount
of time. Developers as late as 1994 can be quoted as claiming Assembly was
better, because it meant the quality of the code would differentiate their
game from others on the shelf, if their code was of good quality.
> (Saturn had more raw power but
> was a 2D machine with 3D parts tacked on after the PSX specs were
> announced).
That's nothing more than a rumor, both the PS1 and Saturn specs were
finalized more than 1.5 years prior to their Japanese release.
> > Similarly, by the end of both console's life cycles, the N64 sold 17.9
> > million units in the States and the PS1 sold 22.7 million. If Nintendo
had
> > used CD, and/or Sega had used mature development kits and better 3rd
party
> > support, things very easily could have been different.
> >
>
> I believe that, world-wide, PSX outsold N64 by about 2-1 (due to N64
> having less popularity in Japan).
Due to having no Square games on it, and being percieved as behind the
(CD-based) times besides. Nothing's absolute, but there's plenty of support
for the idea that the N64 would have done much better had it been CD-based.
Ted
Scott H wrote:
>
snip
> > They were, that was their primary objection to N64, they made no bones
> > about it. In fact early FF7 technology demos were done on SGI N64
> > emulators, I remember Diehard Gamefan's article on this, way back when.
>
> The game itself could have easily been done, the cutscenes would have
> had to have been real time. The music even sounds like N64 chip music.
snip
Would they have had to have real time cutscenes? RE2 did a pretty good
job of cramming cut scenes onto an N64 cart...
Scott H
Nope, just more (expensive) cart memory or a sophisticated compression
routine away.
Grand Inquisitor
>>They were, that was their primary objection to N64, they made no bones
>>about it. In fact early FF7 technology demos were done on SGI N64
>>emulators, I remember Diehard Gamefan's article on this, way back when.
>
>
> The game itself could have easily been done, the cutscenes would have
> had to have been real time. The music even sounds like N64 chip music.
>
Designers, artists, programmers, etc., can all be finicky, spoiled, and
selfish. Sometimes, given the option, they will swear off a platform
for years over some minor thing.
> Sega didn't give out Dev kits with built in software effects until much
> later than Sony did. The reason being that it was traditional to hand out
> all of the hardware documentation and have the developers code in Assembly,
> something 3rd parties returned to even on PS1, during its later years. The
> combination of hardware special effects like Gouraud shading and
> transparency with mature C based developement kits for the PS1 is what
> allowed developers to crank out games more quickly, with consistantly higher
> performance levels than a Saturn game coded in Assembly in the same amount
> of time. Developers as late as 1994 can be quoted as claiming Assembly was
> better, because it meant the quality of the code would differentiate their
> game from others on the shelf, if their code was of good quality.
>
That's true, and I admire programmers who make the choice to program in
assembly, something Sony would not let developers do (not for years,
anyway). But from a producer's point-of-view, time is often a bigger
concern than getting the game done right. Yes, this is short-sighted,
but we're talking about producers here. :-)
> That's nothing more than a rumor, both the PS1 and Saturn specs were
> finalized more than 1.5 years prior to their Japanese release.
>
According to all sources I've read, Hayao Nakayama personally directed
his engineers to add more 3D power after seeing what Sony had in mind.
I've seen no evidence that this is some kind of unfounded rumor.
> Due to having no Square games on it, and being percieved as behind the
> (CD-based) times besides. Nothing's absolute, but there's plenty of support
> for the idea that the N64 would have done much better had it been CD-based.
I don't disagree with you there, in fact I think if it had been
CD-powered it would have at least equalled the PSX, if not overtaken it.
Imagine Super Mario 64 with more graphical variety, or OoT.
Scott H
> Scott H wrote:
> >>They were, that was their primary objection to N64, they made no bones
> >>about it. In fact early FF7 technology demos were done on SGI N64
> >>emulators, I remember Diehard Gamefan's article on this, way back when.
> >
> >
> > The game itself could have easily been done, the cutscenes would
have
> > had to have been real time. The music even sounds like N64 chip music.
> >
>
> Designers, artists, programmers, etc., can all be finicky, spoiled, and
> selfish. Sometimes, given the option, they will swear off a platform
> for years over some minor thing.
No joke, I'm all for exclusive titles, but never making a game for other
viable platforms is just silly.
> > Sega didn't give out Dev kits with built in software effects until
much
> > later than Sony did. The reason being that it was traditional to hand
out
> > all of the hardware documentation and have the developers code in
Assembly,
> > something 3rd parties returned to even on PS1, during its later years.
The
> > combination of hardware special effects like Gouraud shading and
> > transparency with mature C based developement kits for the PS1 is what
> > allowed developers to crank out games more quickly, with consistantly
higher
> > performance levels than a Saturn game coded in Assembly in the same
amount
> > of time. Developers as late as 1994 can be quoted as claiming Assembly
was
> > better, because it meant the quality of the code would differentiate
their
> > game from others on the shelf, if their code was of good quality.
> >
>
> That's true, and I admire programmers who make the choice to program in
> assembly, something Sony would not let developers do (not for years,
> anyway). But from a producer's point-of-view, time is often a bigger
> concern than getting the game done right. Yes, this is short-sighted,
> but we're talking about producers here. :-)
Well, and an industry wide change towards faster development times, in
the short term, didn't help anything.
> > That's nothing more than a rumor, both the PS1 and Saturn specs were
> > finalized more than 1.5 years prior to their Japanese release.
> >
>
> According to all sources I've read, Hayao Nakayama personally directed
> his engineers to add more 3D power after seeing what Sony had in mind.
> I've seen no evidence that this is some kind of unfounded rumor.
That's true, but the there's no indication that the system had no 3D
capabilities prior to that, or what the capabilities were. The additional
tweaks could have been as little as more RAM and tweaks to the DSP chip, to
as much as the adding the second CPU, but nobody knows for sure. The rumor
I was referring to is the one that says it was just a Sega System 32 arcade
machine in a console, and, getting caught with their pants down, Sega
slapped together two SH-2's, the VDP1 and VDP2 at the last minute and called
it a console. Both the PS1 and Saturn hardware were finalized within a few
months of each other, at least 1.5 years prior to the Japanese launch.
The rumors and discussion on Saturn's 3D capabilities started when
people noticed many early Saturn games seemed less advanced when compared to
early PS1 games. Before that all of the press on the Saturn was about it
being a fully capable 3D system. Since we already know that the limitations
in Saturn software were due to Assembly verses C libraries combined with
shortened development time, we already know the answer to the question that
spawned the speculation.
> > Due to having no Square games on it, and being percieved as behind
the
> > (CD-based) times besides. Nothing's absolute, but there's plenty of
support
> > for the idea that the N64 would have done much better had it been
CD-based.
>
> I don't disagree with you there, in fact I think if it had been
> CD-powered it would have at least equalled the PSX, if not overtaken it.
> Imagine Super Mario 64 with more graphical variety, or OoT.
I'd just take it at 640x480, or at least without that full screen fuzzyness.
;)
Ted
Scott H wrote:
snip
> No joke, I'm all for exclusive titles, but never making a game for other
> viable platforms is just silly.
snip
Well, they don't actually do that, do they?
Final Fantasy games have come out on various platforms. There's the
older GB Final Fantasy games from 1991, then more recently FFTactics on
the GBA and FFXI on the PC, and (more on the lines of non-dominant
systems) the very recent FFCC and the Wonderswan Color remakes of FF 1-4
in 2000-2002.
Delameko Stone
> Doug Jacobs wrote:
> > I thought that Sony was helping to produce a CD-based Nintendo console
> > when Nintendo changed its mind and decided to go with a cartridge based
> > unit which became the N64. Sony, left with half a console, pried
> > Nintendo's name off the front, named the resulting thing "Playstation"
and
> > the rest is history...
Playstation, but not the final Playstation. The first version of Sony's
Playstation was a 2D games/education machine that could play SNES games as
well as CD-Roms, as far as I know it was never released and only shown at
the Tokyo International Electronics Show in 91.
> There is no evidence (that *I've* heard of anyway) that the planned
> SNES-CD attachment was to be the 3D graphics machine that the PSX later
> became. But you are right, the germ of the idea came from Sony's
> dealings with Nintendo, who decided to go with Philips at the last
> minute, without telling Sony first, which alienated Sony. And, of
> course, you can see how successful Philips wound up being in the
> interactive CD software field.... All along, the attachment was
> intended to be CD-based, this part of the plan never changed.
I think the interesting part to consider though, was, if Nintendo hadn't
alienated Sony and Sony hadn't turned their SNES CD-Rom into the first
(unreleased) Playstation would the final released PSX have ever been
developed?
--
Delameko Stone
Gary
"Delameko Stone" <dl...@REMOVEjslater.plus.com> wrote in message
news:WTgLc.20194382$Of.33...@news.easynews.com...
warehouse somewhere, that were produced prior to the agreement going south.
I initally heard this legend while reading i think issue #1 or #2 of Next
Generation Magazine (RIP). From what i understood it was to be called
PSX....Ah such great gaming legends.....if that hardware actually got
released the whole 32 bit generation would have been a whole lot different
as the SNES would have retained it's solid hold on gamers.
and for all you legend solvers..
ENOS LIVES
> --
> Delameko Stone
>
>
Grand Inquisitor
> That's true, but the there's no indication that the system had no 3D
> capabilities prior to that, or what the capabilities were. The additional
> tweaks could have been as little as more RAM and tweaks to the DSP chip, to
> as much as the adding the second CPU, but nobody knows for sure. The rumor
> I was referring to is the one that says it was just a Sega System 32 arcade
> machine in a console, and, getting caught with their pants down, Sega
> slapped together two SH-2's, the VDP1 and VDP2 at the last minute and called
> it a console. Both the PS1 and Saturn hardware were finalized within a few
> months of each other, at least 1.5 years prior to the Japanese launch.
> The rumors and discussion on Saturn's 3D capabilities started when
> people noticed many early Saturn games seemed less advanced when compared to
> early PS1 games. Before that all of the press on the Saturn was about it
> being a fully capable 3D system. Since we already know that the limitations
> in Saturn software were due to Assembly verses C libraries combined with
> shortened development time, we already know the answer to the question that
> spawned the speculation.
>
One rumor that Next Generation reported was the the original Saturn
specs were very similar to the 32X, which did have some 3D capabilities
(about on the level of 3DO).
>>I don't disagree with you there, in fact I think if it had been
>>CD-powered it would have at least equalled the PSX, if not overtaken it.
>> Imagine Super Mario 64 with more graphical variety, or OoT.
>
>
> I'd just take it at 640x480, or at least without that full screen fuzzyness.
> ;)
>
Or that also... I think maybe they should have gone with high-res
graphics and ditched the anti-aliasing.
Grand Inquisitor
> I think the interesting part to consider though, was, if Nintendo hadn't
> alienated Sony and Sony hadn't turned their SNES CD-Rom into the first
> (unreleased) Playstation would the final released PSX have ever been
> developed?
Would Sony have gone solo into the console market, you mean? Probably,
but maybe not until the late 90s at the earliest.
Eric Pobirs
"Scott H" <sheat...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:n3cLc.9373$Iz3...@nwrddc01.gnilink.net...
> Due to having no Square games on it, and being percieved as behind the
> (CD-based) times besides. Nothing's absolute, but there's plenty of
support
> for the idea that the N64 would have done much better had it been
CD-based.
Equally important factors of CD-based systems, especially the approach
Sony established in creating the first dominant CD-based platform, are low
cost of media, fast production of additional orders, and no major penalty
for ordering in low numbers. These factors very quickly made developers and
retailers alike fall in love with the Playstation and eager for consumers to
do the same.
Eric Pobirs
"Grand Inquisitor" <zo...@columbus.rr.com> wrote in message
news:yXaLc.224022$DG4.1...@fe2.columbus.rr.com...
> > I thought that Sony was helping to produce a CD-based Nintendo console
> > when Nintendo changed its mind and decided to go with a cartridge based
> > unit which became the N64. Sony, left with half a console, pried
> > Nintendo's name off the front, named the resulting thing "Playstation"
and
> > the rest is history...
> >
>
> There is no evidence (that *I've* heard of anyway) that the planned
> SNES-CD attachment was to be the 3D graphics machine that the PSX later
> became. But you are right, the germ of the idea came from Sony's
> dealings with Nintendo, who decided to go with Philips at the last
> minute, without telling Sony first, which alienated Sony. And, of
> course, you can see how successful Philips wound up being in the
> interactive CD software field.... All along, the attachment was
> intended to be CD-based, this part of the plan never changed.
Actually, 3D was intended to be a major feature of the SNES-CD, albeit
not on the Sony Playstation's level. The added processing elements of the
add-on included a later version of the FX chip first used in StarFox. Very
few FX games were created due to the expense of adding the chip to cartridge
cost. (All of the FX games were low users of ROM capacity to compensate.) On
top of that very few developers had much experience with 3D and at that cost
were in no hurry to learn.
Making the FX chip part of the standard hardware was intended to make 3D
a no brainer for developers, at least as far as costs were concerned. One of
the few completed SNES-CD games was a Konami Gradius-style shooter called
Xexex. It was spectacular for that era and a good home version would be a
testament to that system's ability. I saw a demo of the SNES-CD version on
videotape. It starts off looking very much like similar Sega-CD shooters
(with the greater SNES color and palette range) in that it's liitle
different from a cartridge game except for the addition of some FMV
material. The real difference came in when polygonal objects appeared in
later levels. This became commonplace on the 32-bit system but on a SNES
game it was very impressive.
Grand Inquisitor
> Actually, 3D was intended to be a major feature of the SNES-CD, albeit
> not on the Sony Playstation's level. The added processing elements of the
> add-on included a later version of the FX chip first used in StarFox. Very
> few FX games were created due to the expense of adding the chip to cartridge
> cost. (All of the FX games were low users of ROM capacity to compensate.) On
> top of that very few developers had much experience with 3D and at that cost
> were in no hurry to learn.
>
Would this be the SuperFX 2 chip? While technically more than one chip
(the original SFX chip plus another chip), the SFX2 chip let the SNES
push about 20,000 flat-shaded polygons per second. There were to be
some games released using this chip but most never saw the light of day
or were moved to N64. Star Fox 64 for instance, and believe it or not
Miyamoto said Super Mario 64 first began as a SFX2 game, way early on.
I'd love to see some screenshots from *that* prototype!
> later levels. This became commonplace on the 32-bit system but on a SNES
> game it was very impressive.
Remember seeing Star Fox for the first time? Wow.
There were one or two polygon-based games for Genesis too, my friend
owned one that was an Olympic simulator. It had skiing and luging.
Very choppy frame rate, but we had a load of fun.
Scott H
Okay, maybe I should have said never making a game for another viable
console in the same generation. I also wasn't focusing solely on Square.
Scott H
Yes it was. Heh, I had a friend argue tooth and nail that the 3DO was *way*
too powerful to even be in the same generation as the 32X.
> >>I don't disagree with you there, in fact I think if it had been
> >>CD-powered it would have at least equalled the PSX, if not overtaken it.
> >> Imagine Super Mario 64 with more graphical variety, or OoT.
> >
> >
> > I'd just take it at 640x480, or at least without that full screen
fuzzyness.
> > ;)
> >
>
> Or that also... I think maybe they should have gone with high-res
> graphics and ditched the anti-aliasing.
I can tell you they would have had one more early adopter if they had,
especially if they'd have gone with CD, or CD and Cart. One thing they were
right about though was the CD-medium's ease of piracy, but I think they
avoided that heart ache at the cost of far too much marketshare.
Eiji Hayashi
> Eiji Hayashi wrote:
> >>What hurt Nintendo more than anything was driving the cry-babies at
> >>Squaresoft away.
> >
> >
> > you'll have to explain to me how choosing to only develop for the
> > dominant platform, a guiding principle of Squaresoft right from its
> > beginning and has been stated many many times, constitutes as
> > "cry-babies". Blame Nintendo for loosing its dominant position, not
> > Squaresoft for sticking to its business strategy.
>
> Squaresoft was very up-front in that they wanted to include a lot of
> voicework and FMV cut scenes in their games, which cartridges wouldn't
> allow.
>
> That's how.
err.. let me get this right. Squaresoft wants to enhance the gaming
experience for their players by including new technological advances
that the Nintendo platform didn't allow, and that makes them
crybabies? That's some twisted logic mate. Never mind that its their
business strategy of developing for the dominant platform that's
really the main factor and that this stuff is just secondary.
Grand Inquisitor
> err.. let me get this right. Squaresoft wants to enhance the gaming
> experience for their players by including new technological advances
> that the Nintendo platform didn't allow, and that makes them
> crybabies? That's some twisted logic mate. Never mind that its their
> business strategy of developing for the dominant platform that's
> really the main factor and that this stuff is just secondary.
FMV and audio are all nice but they are not necessary for the kind of
games they were making. Plenty of N64 had real-time cutscenes that
worked just fine.
You can't say PSX was "the dominant platform" because at that time the
32-bit race was just beginning.
Grand Inquisitor
>>One rumor that Next Generation reported was the the original Saturn
>>specs were very similar to the 32X, which did have some 3D capabilities
>>(about on the level of 3DO).
>
>
> Yes it was. Heh, I had a friend argue tooth and nail that the 3DO was *way*
> too powerful to even be in the same generation as the 32X.
>
Although, off-hand, it seemed most of 32X's 3D games used flat-shaded
polygons, while plenty of 3DO games used textured polygons (Road Rash,
Need for Speed, etc.).
Scott H
"Gary" <gha...@curwe.com> wrote in message
news:%hiLc.46836$_V4....@read1.cgocable.net...
Well, that's the first time I've heard somebody say on Usenet that an
add-on might have helped a game company.
Grand Inquisitor
> Well, that's the first time I've heard somebody say on Usenet that an
> add-on might have helped a game company.
Well, Sony was helped by Sega's add-ons in the 16-bit race, weren't
they? Sega turned away plenty of would-be Saturn customers by coming
out with too many add-ons, including a 32-bit one just before their real
32-bit system came out. IOW Sega treated their customers like morons
who will buy whatever they shell out. For a long time I felt that Sega
had bad, insulting management in spite of their great creative teams.
Remember when Sega was telling people that Saturn was a 128-bit system,
if you added up the "bits" of each major chip?
Scott H
> Scott H wrote:
> >>One rumor that Next Generation reported was the the original Saturn
> >>specs were very similar to the 32X, which did have some 3D capabilities
> >>(about on the level of 3DO).
> >
> >
> > Yes it was. Heh, I had a friend argue tooth and nail that the 3DO was
*way*
> > too powerful to even be in the same generation as the 32X.
> >
>
> Although, off-hand, it seemed most of 32X's 3D games used flat-shaded
> polygons, while plenty of 3DO games used textured polygons (Road Rash,
> Need for Speed, etc.).
Yeah, I was speaking strictly from specs really, though that 32X video
from Scavenger that just surfaced is pretty impressive. I'm not sure what
the RAM differences were between the 3DO and 32X, though I'm pretty sure
that the 32X's 768KB was pretty danged low for texture mapped polygon games.
Scott H
> Scott H wrote:
> > Well, that's the first time I've heard somebody say on Usenet that
an
> > add-on might have helped a game company.
>
> Well, Sony was helped by Sega's add-ons in the 16-bit race, weren't
> they? Sega turned away plenty of would-be Saturn customers by coming
> out with too many add-ons, including a 32-bit one just before their real
> 32-bit system came out. IOW Sega treated their customers like morons
> who will buy whatever they shell out. For a long time I felt that Sega
> had bad, insulting management in spite of their great creative teams.
See, I never felt that way, I added up the cost of the Sega CD and 32X,
divided it by the number of games I knew were coming out that I wanted, and
bought them both at launch knowing that they weren't going to cost me more
than I was willing to pay for the games I wanted, and that was that. Nobody
was "ripped off" by either add-on. SOJ's flakey support of both didn't help
anything either though.
> Remember when Sega was telling people that Saturn was a 128-bit system,
> if you added up the "bits" of each major chip?
I remember Gamepro or Gamefan saying that (they said it'd be 64-bit though),
I don't remember Sega saying it.
Grand Inquisitor
>>Remember when Sega was telling people that Saturn was a 128-bit system,
>>if you added up the "bits" of each major chip?
>
>
> I remember Gamepro or Gamefan saying that (they said it'd be 64-bit though),
> I don't remember Sega saying it.
Somebody wrote a letter to Next Generation magazine, in 1996 I think,
that Sega technical support had actually told them that Saturn was a
128-bit machine (this still being a time when people cared about this
relatively unimportant bit distinction), and NG called Sega themselves
to see if it was true. It was.
Miles Bader
> that Sega technical support had actually told them that Saturn was a
> 128-bit machine (this still being a time when people cared about this
> relatively unimportant bit distinction), and NG called Sega themselves
> to see if it was true. It was.
I can imagine the competition among the techical staff to see who could
come up with a bizarre definition of "bitness" that could meet the
demands of marketing ("we _need_ to be 128 bits!") and still stand a
chance of fooling some of the public...
[I'll bet the winner works at Sony now. :-]
-Miles
--
"Most attacks seem to take place at night, during a rainstorm, uphill,
where four map sheets join." -- Anon. British Officer in WW I
Grand Inquisitor
> I can imagine the competition among the techical staff to see who could
> come up with a bizarre definition of "bitness" that could meet the
> demands of marketing ("we _need_ to be 128 bits!") and still stand a
> chance of fooling some of the public...
>
> [I'll bet the winner works at Sony now. :-]
Wasn't it Sony who claimed 60 million polygons per second, and Microsoft
600 million?
Scott H
> Scott H wrote:
> >>Remember when Sega was telling people that Saturn was a 128-bit system,
> >>if you added up the "bits" of each major chip?
> >
> >
> > I remember Gamepro or Gamefan saying that (they said it'd be 64-bit
though),
> > I don't remember Sega saying it.
>
> Somebody wrote a letter to Next Generation magazine, in 1996 I think,
> that Sega technical support had actually told them that Saturn was a
> 128-bit machine (this still being a time when people cared about this
> relatively unimportant bit distinction), and NG called Sega themselves
> to see if it was true. It was.
Yeah, somebody at tech support told me that the 32X was the most
advanced hardware ever too. I suppose that's technically Sega saying it,
but it's actually a call center full of employees of Sega. When I was an
employee of Covad, I told their customers they were right, and Covad was
wrong, more often than not. I was their employee for two years.
Scott H
> Miles Bader wrote:
> > I can imagine the competition among the techical staff to see who could
> > come up with a bizarre definition of "bitness" that could meet the
> > demands of marketing ("we _need_ to be 128 bits!") and still stand a
> > chance of fooling some of the public...
> >
> > [I'll bet the winner works at Sony now. :-]
>
> Wasn't it Sony who claimed 60 million polygons per second, and Microsoft
> 600 million?
Sony claimed 60 million for the GS and 75 million for the EE. Microsoft
claimed 300 million, or 150 million in game, if I recall. Both were
outright lies.
Eric Pobirs
>
> Well, that's the first time I've heard somebody say on Usenet that an
> add-on might have helped a game company.
>
>
Add-ons are fine when they're priced right and make reasonable demands
on developer's resources and patience. The RAM Expander and Rumble Pak for
the N64 are two examples of items that achieved extremely high consumer
acceptance and substantial software support. One was introduced as a free
bundle with a major title release (Star Fox 64) and the other was
accompanied with a $5 discount coupon tied to the first published game to
support it (Rogue Squadron) and was later bundled with the first game to
require it. (Donkey Kong) Even purchased at full retail they were
inexpensive and third party versions moreso. (My choice in vibration
feedback was a model that combined a Memory Pak with a vibrator that
required no batteries. Good ongoing value.)
Vibration feedback effects have been so well accepted by the market that
hardly anyone would consider launching a new console without it built into
the controllers.
The Sony EyeToy is another good example, although some prefer to
characterize it as a peripheral. It cost no more than a game and included
sufficient enjoyment from its bundled mini-games to justify its existence on
that basis. The numerous upcoming EyeToy-required games and other games with
EyeToy features and online conferencing support are just icing on the cake.
The worldwide sales for the base unit were more than enough to justify its
release, not to mention the prestige factor. The additional software should
drive it into the millions sold in all three major markets.
I think the trick is not to create something that forces developers to
treat it almost or entirely as a separate platform. This means a big
investment in learning to code for new hardware in exchange for a limited
installed base compared to the unadorned console. One of the big failings of
the Sega CD is that they were unable to convince almost anybody to create
games that made good use of the extended special effects it offered. In
fact, I cannot recall any third party products that did other than those
from Core Design. (Soul Star, Chuck Rock Racing/BC Racers, BattleCorps,
etc.) Aside from some good games brought over by Working Designs almost
everything on Sega-CD that actually required a CD to implement was just
tedious FMV exercises. Most developers took the approach of just doing games
that would work as a Genesis cartridge and add some FMV material to make it
a CD game. The CD version sometimes included extra levels and bonus material
but in general Sega really dropped the ball on getting developers to make
full use of the hardware's capabilities, ending up with a library that
offered little to those not enchanted by FMV and bad voiceover work.
Especially when several of the best entries were also available as
cartridges that didn't require the expensive add-on.
Eric Pobirs
And don't forget the very pricey polygonal games Sega released on
Genesis, particularly Virtua Racing which was at $99 in most places when
new. Sega wanted to quickly match Nintendo's accomplishment but without the
years of investment Nintendo had with Argonaut (whose Starglider games for
Atari ST andAmiga were direct ancestors to Star Fox) to create the FX chip
series. They used an off the shelf product with a lot of unneeded
functionality for their purpose and thus on the expensive side for video
games.
I forgot to mention another bit of SNES-CD trivia. The game 'Secret of
Mana' when played on the SNES was fun thanks to its innovative control
scheme but was oddly lacking in story development, any puzzles worth
mentioning, and seemed incomplete. The reason was that it was originally
intended to be a heavily promoted SNES-CD title. Much of the story
development was intended to be done in FMV and several puzzles relied on
functions in the add-on hardware. They opted to do a quick cauterization of
the wounds where the CD parts were amputated and shipped it like that.
Scott H
"Eric Pobirs" <epo...@pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:N1MLc.85$3A4...@newssvr27.news.prodigy.com...
I agree completely, implementation is everything with an upgrade/add-on.
> I think the trick is not to create something that forces developers to
> treat it almost or entirely as a separate platform. This means a big
> investment in learning to code for new hardware in exchange for a limited
> installed base compared to the unadorned console. One of the big failings
of
> the Sega CD is that they were unable to convince almost anybody to create
> games that made good use of the extended special effects it offered. In
> fact, I cannot recall any third party products that did other than those
> from Core Design. (Soul Star, Chuck Rock Racing/BC Racers, BattleCorps,
> etc.) Aside from some good games brought over by Working Designs almost
> everything on Sega-CD that actually required a CD to implement was just
> tedious FMV exercises. Most developers took the approach of just doing
games
> that would work as a Genesis cartridge and add some FMV material to make
it
> a CD game. The CD version sometimes included extra levels and bonus
material
> but in general Sega really dropped the ball on getting developers to make
> full use of the hardware's capabilities, ending up with a library that
> offered little to those not enchanted by FMV and bad voiceover work.
> Especially when several of the best entries were also available as
> cartridges that didn't require the expensive add-on.
>
The situation was actually nowhere near that bad. Off the top of my
head, the following games all either take advantage of the Sega CD's special
effects in a significant way, or they take advantage of the CD-medium's
extra storage for larger levels, more levels, more details, larger sprites,
more animation, and animated cutscenes or FMV cutscenes over their cartridge
counterparts. There's 28 games here, consider that one might only buy 15 of
them at $50 each, and the Sega CD at $300 original retail. No extra
controllers or peripherals were required, since it was an add-on. That
would make the games $70 each, which is what Nintendo was offering on the
Snes with its chipped games. I call that success, at least at providing the
same value, with much more special effects and storage benefits included.
Batman Returns
Eternal Champions: Challenge from the Darkside
Ecco the Dolphin
Earthworm Jim Special Edition
Final Fight CD
Jaguar XJ220
Jurassic Park
Lunar the Silver Star
Lunar Eternal Blue
Mickey Mania
Racing Aces
Rise of the Dragon
Silpheed
Sonic CD
Soul Feace
Soul Star
Spiderman Vs The Kingpin
Stellar Fire
The Terminator
ThunderStrike
Black Hole Assault
Dark Wizard
Escape from Monkey Island
Fatal Fury Special
Lords of Thunder
Samurai Showdown
Shining Force CD
Snatcher
Eric Pobirs
>
> "Eric Pobirs" <epo...@pacbell.net> wrote in message
> news:N1MLc.85$3A4...@newssvr27.news.prodigy.com...
> >
Yes, but as I already mentioned many of those were just cart games with
some FMV added on, and with the limited palette and RAM very poor FMV at
that. In many cases there was a ROM cart version that wasn't seen as lacking
much by comparison. Others were greatly diminished PC ports of limited
appeal and painfully slow on the Sega's very limited RAM. (The Adventures of
Wally Beamish should be on the list. I've still got almost all of those on a
shelf.) Still more didn't appear to have anything going on that wasn't
provided with better color range in SNES games applying Mode 7 effects. And
by the time the cost of the Sega CD was within reason for most young
shoppers of the era the cost of ROM had dropped to erase much of the CD's
advantage. Although the CD had hundreds of megabytes of capacity, aside from
FMV the developers were using in a manner that only consumed a few megabits.
Some of that was force of habit. You don't spend years programming for
floppy and ROM based storage and change your thinking all that fast. Much of
the rest was that when you started a game design in the Genesis environment
it wasn't easy to find much to use up lots of storage without resorting to
FMV. Once you have all of your sprites and tiles defined (every time you
added more you were driving up cost in artist's time) additional levels are
little more than coordinates maps equivalent to a page of text plus some
logic where needed. A few kilobytes. A year's worth of decline in mask ROM
costs easily offered the same room for growth in the larger Genesis market
without catering to the Sega CD owner subset. This in turn left gamers who
didn't get a big charge from FMV fairly unmotivated to buy.
Better Ecco, better Earthworm Jim, better Final Fight, etc. didn't have
enough immediately obvious improvement to make the rank and file look past
the cost of entry. Sega did a lousy job of making consumers aware there was
more than just some added FMV gloss on top of a Genesis game. (Especially
since that often was all the difference.) For the straight action gamer
there wasn't much that really said you really want this game and you can't
even get close to what it does without buying the expensive add-on except
for those Core Design titles that really pushed the effects. Those
unfortunately were poorly promoted and poorly distributed compared to the
sea of Digital Pictures FMV garbage.
Grand Inquisitor
>>Wasn't it Sony who claimed 60 million polygons per second, and Microsoft
>>600 million?
>
>
> Sony claimed 60 million for the GS and 75 million for the EE. Microsoft
> claimed 300 million, or 150 million in game, if I recall. Both were
> outright lies.
Indeed. I cancelled my subscription to Next Generation magazine partly
because the way they reported that, as if they were press agents for
Sony. Here was a magazine, that even though it had a Sony bias since
its inception, it was always relatively fair to all parties, but towards
the end of its life it began going beyond just having a Sony bias to
being an outright fanzine. They said the PS2 was "the greatest system
ever invented," months before it was even released. Not "the most
powerful," because even in that context they weren't talking about
power. They said Gamecube lagged far behind the other two consoles in
system power, saying it was barely next-gen (seriously!). Their
reasoning for this bizarre claim? Because they were taking Sony and
Microsoft's highly theoretical and misleading tech specs at face value,
while Nintendo was, and always has been, giving *realistic* in-game
specs, with all effects turned on. Even the designer of DOA3,
Microsoft's "butt boy" who couldn't heap enough praise on X-Box and
sneer at the competition, would readily admit that GC could run
DOA3-quality graphics, while the PS2 definitely could not (it doesn't
even have hardware anti-aliasing, a weird omission by Kutaragi, but I
doubt he cares much). I find PS2's jagged graphics to be distracting,
don't know about you...
Grand Inquisitor
> Escape from Monkey Island
You must mean Secret of Monkey Island. Escape came out years after the
Sega CD died.
figmentpez
> Scott H wrote:
> > Escape from Monkey Island
>
> You must mean Secret of Monkey Island. Escape came out years after the
> Sega CD died.
I'm betting it was Curse of Monkey Island.
Checks...
Yup, it was.
--
figmentPez
Grand Inquisitor
>>You must mean Secret of Monkey Island. Escape came out years after the
>>Sega CD died.
>
>
> I'm betting it was Curse of Monkey Island.
>
> Checks...
>
> Yup, it was.
Uh, I just checked myself. I can only find the first game out on Sega
CD, not CMI.
Can you provide a link?
Scott H
Yup, Next Gen and Daily Radar were the two worst zenes I can think of
next to Gamepro for their printing opinion as fact. Hopefully Gamepro and
Game Informer will see the same end.
As for the PS2 aliasing issue, what distracts me more is the lack of
texture clarity. Even coming from the Dreamcast, I just couldn't get over
how this supposedly superior system isn't even doing Dreamcast quality
texture maps on average. That said, the games are still there, and they're
still good, but I blame Sony for my disappointment, because the hype around
their technically inferior system was all their doing.
Scott H
>
> "Scott H" <sheat...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:0bPLc.41986$lz2....@nwrddc03.gnilink.net...
That's why I said that even if you break it down to 15 games the value
per game is still there. I bought my Sega CD at age 14 from money I made
mowing lawns, and from capitol raised from selling my NES and TG16. It was
doable, but your point should just point out further that nobody got "ripped
off" by the Sega CD, since the average consumer couldn't buy it till the
Sega CD 2 was the norm.
> Some of that was force of habit. You don't spend years programming for
> floppy and ROM based storage and change your thinking all that fast. Much
of
> the rest was that when you started a game design in the Genesis
environment
> it wasn't easy to find much to use up lots of storage without resorting to
> FMV. Once you have all of your sprites and tiles defined (every time you
> added more you were driving up cost in artist's time) additional levels
are
> little more than coordinates maps equivalent to a page of text plus some
> logic where needed. A few kilobytes. A year's worth of decline in mask ROM
> costs easily offered the same room for growth in the larger Genesis market
> without catering to the Sega CD owner subset. This in turn left gamers who
> didn't get a big charge from FMV fairly unmotivated to buy.
Progress takes time, and sometimes better technology, but FMV was never
likely to take over the Industry as any kind of popular genre. As for the
memory issues, I'd have to point out the Takara ports of SNK games to the
Genesis/Snes and then Sega CD, or Final Fight CD, or the extras of Eternal
Champions, or the cutscenes of the Lunar games or Silpheed, not to mention
loads of voice required to make games like Rise of the Dragon and Snatcher
work like they did, and ask why didn't carts do it if memory was so cheap?
Moreover, if the Snes's mode 7 capabilities were so vaunted, why isn't there
a game running straight off the system that can compete with the likes of
Soul Star or Thunderstrike? Silpheed again is a perfect example of ways the
CD medium's storage capabilites could be used for both graphics, sound and
cutscenes.
> Better Ecco, better Earthworm Jim, better Final Fight, etc. didn't
have
> enough immediately obvious improvement to make the rank and file look past
> the cost of entry. Sega did a lousy job of making consumers aware there
was
> more than just some added FMV gloss on top of a Genesis game. (Especially
> since that often was all the difference.) For the straight action gamer
> there wasn't much that really said you really want this game and you can't
> even get close to what it does without buying the expensive add-on except
> for those Core Design titles that really pushed the effects. Those
> unfortunately were poorly promoted and poorly distributed compared to the
> sea of Digital Pictures FMV garbage.
>
Wait a minute, are we talking about the Sega CD actually being a mistake
without question, or it just not catering to the masses in the way it needed
to in order to take off like a stand alone console would? The later is
obvious because it didn't take off, the former is *very* arguable.
figmentpez
> figmentpez wrote:
> >>You must mean Secret of Monkey Island. Escape came out years after the
> >>Sega CD died.
> >
> >
> > I'm betting it was Curse of Monkey Island.
> >
> > Checks...
> >
> > Yup, it was.
>
> Uh, I just checked myself. I can only find the first game out on Sega
> CD, not CMI.
>
> Can you provide a link?
Nevermind. My bad, you were right. I wasn't even close. Sega CD came out
like 1993 or so, and CoMI came out in 1997 or so.
--
figmentPez
Grand Inquisitor
> Yup, Next Gen and Daily Radar were the two worst zenes I can think of
> next to Gamepro for their printing opinion as fact. Hopefully Gamepro and
> Game Informer will see the same end.
Gamepro is still in publication? Egad. It's a real shame about NG too,
because like I said, they used to be the best magazine for games, they
lacked all the excessive artwork and filler material, it was a really
substantive mag. But in their last year or two, I don't know what
happened. I seriously suspect Sony was paying them off. Sony *did*
fabricate critic quotes for movie ads.
> As for the PS2 aliasing issue, what distracts me more is the lack of
> texture clarity. Even coming from the Dreamcast, I just couldn't get over
> how this supposedly superior system isn't even doing Dreamcast quality
> texture maps on average. That said, the games are still there, and they're
> still good, but I blame Sony for my disappointment, because the hype around
> their technically inferior system was all their doing.
In fact I don't think the PS2 is that much more powerful than the
Dreamcast. I actually think Dreamcast games looked sharper and
"cleaner" than PS2 games do on average. And PS2 games tend to have much
lower polygon counts than native X-Box and GC games, have you noticed?
Dr. Luveno
> The PS1 took 1.5 years in the states to sell 1 million units, and the
> Saturn was right on its heels. In Japan the Saturn was outselling the PS1
> until FF7 came out. If the N64 had been CD based, FF7 would have been on
> the N64, and everything very likely would have been different. I remember
> Square talking about the N64 not being capable of FF7 because it wasn't on
> CD, which I always found funny because the music was all Midi, and the
> backgrounds were 2D. I guess the FMV cutscenes were the big deal to Square.
> But the PS1 was not winning from the start, people were actually still
> buying Genesis and Snes more than anything else up until all three consoles
> were out and running.
I distinctly remember some Sony official saying to put the game on N64,
the cartridge would have to cost $1600 or something like that because
they simply took the size of the CD-ROMS, divided it by like 8 MB and
multiplied it by the price of a N64 game. Ignorant of the fact that (as
you said) the game would've simply been done in real-time on N64.
Man, I really dislike marketing people.
Scott H
"Dr. Luveno" <doc...@luveno.com> wrote in message
news:4100818F...@luveno.com...
YES! This is my biggest complaint about popular theories on why one
console won out on another. People consistantly praise Sony or Nintendo for
winning because of marketing, not for games, but marketing. Meanwhile the
"losing" Sega system had games, plenty of games, gobs of games, and great
games too, not just a lot of them (actually not a lot of them at all, just a
good concentration), and because of failed marketing (bad marketing, in the
eyes of the couch potato CEO) the system is somehow negatively affected as
well. Flawed logic is what I call it.
Scott H
> Scott H wrote:
> > Yup, Next Gen and Daily Radar were the two worst zenes I can think
of
> > next to Gamepro for their printing opinion as fact. Hopefully Gamepro
and
> > Game Informer will see the same end.
>
> Gamepro is still in publication? Egad. It's a real shame about NG too,
> because like I said, they used to be the best magazine for games, they
> lacked all the excessive artwork and filler material, it was a really
> substantive mag. But in their last year or two, I don't know what
> happened. I seriously suspect Sony was paying them off. Sony *did*
> fabricate critic quotes for movie ads.
I used to like Gamepro too, *way* back in the day, before their rating
system was developed really.
> > As for the PS2 aliasing issue, what distracts me more is the lack of
> > texture clarity. Even coming from the Dreamcast, I just couldn't get
over
> > how this supposedly superior system isn't even doing Dreamcast quality
> > texture maps on average. That said, the games are still there, and
they're
> > still good, but I blame Sony for my disappointment, because the hype
around
> > their technically inferior system was all their doing.
>
> In fact I don't think the PS2 is that much more powerful than the
> Dreamcast. I actually think Dreamcast games looked sharper and
> "cleaner" than PS2 games do on average. And PS2 games tend to have much
> lower polygon counts than native X-Box and GC games, have you noticed?
Yeah, I don't really see a huge gap in polygon performance from the
Dreamcast to the PS2 except in what few games have massive levels in a
single load. Comparing racers like F355 or TD:Lemans to the likes of GT3
shows this pretty clearly. I don't ever suspect the DC could do something
like GT3 without creating load sections, like in Shenmue, but it could still
do the game. As you said, it'd easily have higher resolution texture
mapping on Dreamcast. While the Gamecube and Xbox are definitely a step up
from Dreamcast in polygon performance, the PS2 is only in the minority of
its best titles, and even fewer of them have any kind of current gen texture
maps to speak of.
Scott H
> Scott H wrote:
> > Yup, Next Gen and Daily Radar were the two worst zenes I can think
of
> > next to Gamepro for their printing opinion as fact. Hopefully Gamepro
and
> > Game Informer will see the same end.
>
> Gamepro is still in publication? Egad. It's a real shame about NG too,
> because like I said, they used to be the best magazine for games, they
> lacked all the excessive artwork and filler material, it was a really
> substantive mag. But in their last year or two, I don't know what
> happened. I seriously suspect Sony was paying them off. Sony *did*
> fabricate critic quotes for movie ads.
I used to like Gamepro too, *way* back in the day, before their rating
system was developed really.
> > As for the PS2 aliasing issue, what distracts me more is the lack of
> > texture clarity. Even coming from the Dreamcast, I just couldn't get
over
> > how this supposedly superior system isn't even doing Dreamcast quality
> > texture maps on average. That said, the games are still there, and
they're
> > still good, but I blame Sony for my disappointment, because the hype
around
> > their technically inferior system was all their doing.
>
> In fact I don't think the PS2 is that much more powerful than the
> Dreamcast. I actually think Dreamcast games looked sharper and
> "cleaner" than PS2 games do on average. And PS2 games tend to have much
> lower polygon counts than native X-Box and GC games, have you noticed?
Yeah, I don't really see a huge gap in polygon performance from the
Dreamcast to the PS2 except in what few games have massive levels in a
single load. Comparing racers like F355 or TD:Lemans to the likes of GT3
shows this pretty clearly. I don't ever suspect the DC could do something
like GTA3 without creating load sections, like in Shenmue, but it could
still
do the game. Even then I'm not sure, because stuff like Crazy Taxi 1+2 had
such huge levels. As you said, it'd easily have higher resolution texture
Grand Inquisitor
> YES! This is my biggest complaint about popular theories on why one
> console won out on another. People consistantly praise Sony or Nintendo for
> winning because of marketing, not for games, but marketing. Meanwhile the
> "losing" Sega system had games, plenty of games, gobs of games, and great
> games too, not just a lot of them (actually not a lot of them at all, just a
> good concentration), and because of failed marketing (bad marketing, in the
> eyes of the couch potato CEO) the system is somehow negatively affected as
> well. Flawed logic is what I call it.
The Dreamcast is ten times the system the PS2 is or the X-Box is. But
for whatever reason (developers flocking to PS2, bad marketing, etc.) it
just failed. I used to think it was because the DC was under-powered
for a NG system, but after the PS2 came out (with it's "60 million
polygons per second") and all of its games had detailed models and
graphics only a smidge better than DC, I realized that DC could have
kept up. Heck, the Genesis kept up with the SNES in spite of having
much simpler graphics (lower palette, a lot less special effects, almost
no 3D or SFX-type graphics).
Scott H
> Scott H wrote:
> > YES! This is my biggest complaint about popular theories on why one
> > console won out on another. People consistantly praise Sony or Nintendo
for
> > winning because of marketing, not for games, but marketing. Meanwhile
the
> > "losing" Sega system had games, plenty of games, gobs of games, and
great
> > games too, not just a lot of them (actually not a lot of them at all,
just a
> > good concentration), and because of failed marketing (bad marketing, in
the
> > eyes of the couch potato CEO) the system is somehow negatively affected
as
> > well. Flawed logic is what I call it.
>
> The Dreamcast is ten times the system the PS2 is or the X-Box is. But
> for whatever reason (developers flocking to PS2, bad marketing, etc.) it
> just failed. I used to think it was because the DC was under-powered
> for a NG system, but after the PS2 came out (with it's "60 million
> polygons per second") and all of its games had detailed models and
> graphics only a smidge better than DC, I realized that DC could have
> kept up. Heck, the Genesis kept up with the SNES in spite of having
> much simpler graphics (lower palette, a lot less special effects, almost
> no 3D or SFX-type graphics).
Speculated reasons for why the Dreamcast failed are aplenty. Despite
what trolls might like everybody to believe, one thing is for certain, Sega
did everything relatively right with the Dreamcast, and still failed. The
media, market, and Industry simply rejected them. Reasoning out why such a
thing would happen is never going to fully explain it. If they had more
money they'd be doing the same thing Microsoft and Nintendo are doing,
riding this generation out in hopes of the next being more profitable.
Nekofrog
wrote:
Sorry. I'm not a troll; I own a DreamCast and love it. I wouldn't
trade it for a PS2 or an X-Box.
But to say that Sega "did everything right" with it is complete and
total hogwash. Sega's marketing department is, was, and most likely
always will be completely and utterly clueless. Its commercials were
INSULTING to the customer, and tailored to the "hardcore" gamers only
by referencing their franchises history and making fun of it.
Bernie Stolar is perhaps the most incompetent man to ever head up a
major gaming organization. He constantly told gamers that he would not
bring over the games that they were demanding be brought over from
Japan. He constantly berated entire genres of games, stating that the
DC didn't need them to succeed.
Bernie Stolar is one of the biggest fucking morons in the universe.
The death of the DreamCast (in the US) can almost completely be laid
at his feet.
Miles Bader
> Speculated reasons for why the Dreamcast failed are aplenty. Despite
> what trolls might like everybody to believe, one thing is for certain, Sega
> did everything relatively right with the Dreamcast, and still failed. The
> media, market, and Industry simply rejected them. Reasoning out why such a
> thing would happen is never going to fully explain it. If they had more
> money they'd be doing the same thing Microsoft and Nintendo are doing,
> riding this generation out in hopes of the next being more profitable.
Yeah, exactly -- it seems they just made too many mistakes in the
previous generation, and were simply not strong enough to keep going
with the dreamcast; nintendo made mistakes too, but apparently managed
to be fairly profitable none-the-less, and that's given them a lot of
resilience.
-Miles
--
I'd rather be consing.
Grand Inquisitor
> Speculated reasons for why the Dreamcast failed are aplenty. Despite
> what trolls might like everybody to believe, one thing is for certain, Sega
> did everything relatively right with the Dreamcast, and still failed. The
> media, market, and Industry simply rejected them. Reasoning out why such a
> thing would happen is never going to fully explain it. If they had more
> money they'd be doing the same thing Microsoft and Nintendo are doing,
> riding this generation out in hopes of the next being more profitable.
Are you implying that Nintendo is not making a profit? I know for a
fact that Microsoft is losing hundreds of millions on the X-Box, so in
that case you're right, X-Box was never intended to takeover the market,
just establish a foothold in the console world.
drocket
<zo...@columbus.rr.com> wrote:
>Are you implying that Nintendo is not making a profit? I know for a
>fact that Microsoft is losing hundreds of millions on the X-Box, so in
>that case you're right, X-Box was never intended to takeover the market,
>just establish a foothold in the console world.
I'm willing to bet that Nintendo is making a profit, or at least
roughtly breaking even. The Gamecube is a MUCH cheaper product to
make, compared to the XBox. Right from the time it was released, the
general consensus has been that it was priced at about the break-even
point, whereas the XBox was pretty much a loss for every single unit
sold. In addition, Nintendo doesn't advertise nearly as much as Sony
or MS (which may or may not be a good thing. If they'd advertise
more, would it help them sell more? Hard to say...) and since the
biggest sellers of the system are first-party, Nintendo gets all the
profits to themselves instead of having to settle for a much smaller
royalty payment.
drocket
wrote:
>Bernie Stolar is one of the biggest fucking morons in the universe.
>The death of the DreamCast (in the US) can almost completely be laid
>at his feet.
Bernie is probably solely respsonsible for the Dreamcast existing at
all. Without him, Sega probably would have switched over to a
software-only developer after the Saturn, assuming that they managed
to stay alive even that long without him.
Scott H
"Nekofrog" <vor...@suckmyspam.com> wrote in message
news:gsk3g0d0bd1tf55e9...@4ax.com...
Ah, the old standby marketing argument. During the Dreamcast days
people said that the real thing wrong with Sega's TV ads was that there
wasn't enough gameplay footage in the commercial. Then Sony came along, and
PS2 commercials focus on some random image, like a fat dude swinging around
a sword, and only flash images of in game graphics for a severe minority of
the commercial. Sony ads are like a schizophrenic nightmare compared to
Sega's Dreamcast ads when it comes to actual gameplay footage.
Your only possible argument here is the amount of dollars spent on TV
advertising, or the amount of TV commercials there were. In this area I'm
sure they were not as forward as Sony or Microsoft, except that in the time
period of the PS2 launch and following six months Sony's presence on TV was
very minimal as well. Rather than just pointing to there not being a glut
of TV advertisements for the Dreamcast, and calling a bunch of people we
don't know incompetent, we can instead point to Sega's factually limited
resources, their 30-50 games per year produced in house and published
themselves, their first online gaming network and dial up service for a
console, up in the first year of the Dreamcast's life, and the amount of
risks they took, taking the time and money to actually develop new gameplay
engines for stuff like the SA games, Crazy Taxi, Shenmue, JSR, and others.
Engines they didn't reuse in that generation to cut and paste another face
on the same gameplay.
With these in mind a more true statement than "Sega's marketing
department is just incompetent" can easily be said. Sega chose to spend its
limited resources on *games* and gaming related expenses, rather than on TV
ads nobody can put in their console, that may or may not have helped anyway.
I don't know about you, but I know what Sony fans have said, and I for one
would not have 50 more ad slots on TV in exchange for a single game never
being released, or for Seganet being scaled down or not existing at all,
while it existed anyway. That decision would have been truly incompetent,
and characteristic of the mindset the gaming Industry has taken on since the
Dreamcast's failure on the market.
Scott H
"drocket" <dro...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:4it3g0lpagjin997n...@4ax.com...
You seriously think Bernie had that much sway over the, then, proud and
established management of Sega of Japan, the same management that
overpowered Tom Kalinske's US team and botched his plans for the Genesis?
Scott H
"Miles Bader" <mi...@gnu.org> wrote in message
news:87ekn2d...@tc-1-100.kawasaki.gol.ne.jp...
They might have been mistakes in retrospect, but the mistake was not
catching the curve of the Industry fast enough. A miss of less than 6
months time really. Nintendo actually, technically, made an even bigger
mistake than Sega, but your right, they managed to stay on the market in the
States, but suffered much more than Sega in Japan.
Scott H
> Scott H wrote:
> > Speculated reasons for why the Dreamcast failed are aplenty.
Despite
> > what trolls might like everybody to believe, one thing is for certain,
Sega
> > did everything relatively right with the Dreamcast, and still failed.
The
> > media, market, and Industry simply rejected them. Reasoning out why
such a
> > thing would happen is never going to fully explain it. If they had more
> > money they'd be doing the same thing Microsoft and Nintendo are doing,
> > riding this generation out in hopes of the next being more profitable.
>
> Are you implying that Nintendo is not making a profit? I know for a
> fact that Microsoft is losing hundreds of millions on the X-Box, so in
> that case you're right, X-Box was never intended to takeover the market,
> just establish a foothold in the console world.
I was just pointing out their lack of marketshare when compared to the
current PS2 market.
Richard Hutnik
> http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3133485
>
> The Japanese games industry would appear to be screwed at this point.
> That is the basic message delivered by the latest CESA White Paper,
> the annual report of the Computer Entertainment Suppliers'
> Association. CESA's survey chronicled a third consecutive year of
> steady decline in Japanese hardware and software revenues, down 11% in
> 2003 and nearly 40% since the peak of the PlayStation generation in
> 1997.
... SNIP ...
The industry has matured and people have gotten bored. What exactly
is blowing one away with revolutionary new gameplay that is accessible
to get into, and also has legs to last? And games are taking longer
and longer to produce.
- Richard Hutnik